About me
My name is Navin Goyal, and I’m an anesthesiologist and early-stage venture capitalist. I went to the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, and I completed my anesthesiology residency at the University of Chicago. I’ve worked in private practice for 13 years in a large hospital system. I became medical director of one of our hospitals and learned a lot in leadership and also limitations of physician influence in the administration. My initial startup was a mobile anesthesia company that is now in 4 states. This led me to launch my venture capital firm, LOUD Capital, in 2015. In 2019, I left my medical practice to run the VC firm full-time as CEO.
About this AMA:
I’m thrilled to do an AMA to help physicians, medical students, and other medical professionals think about how the skills we learn as medical students can be transferred to non-traditional careers and opportunities inside and outside of healthcare.
By no means could I have predicted this path for myself, however, I’ve learned so much along the way, and I’m excited to share as much as I can with you all.
I’ll answer questions Thursday, January 6, 10 am EST & Monday, January 10 at 9 am EST
Some topics I can chime in on:
- Alternative careers within and outside of medicine
- Physician entrepreneurship
- Venture capital
- Anesthesiology as a career
- Networking
- Translatable skills from medical school to venture capital
- Advice on approaching investments including venture capital, private equity, and revenue financing
For background, I have an ecommerce brand for a custom made nutrition product. I've been operating for several years, completely bootstrapped. I came in just under the $1M revenue mark in 2021 - it surely would have been more without the manufacturing delays. It's profitable but not wildly so. My bottleneck is really the fact that it's bootstrapped, so I have self-imposed limits. It's a multibillion dollar US market and my product is kind of sticky and disruptive.
Last year I met with Walmart and we're moving forward with a test in a large number of stores. So my brand is going to be side-by-side with the big boys, ready to steal that market share.
Financing the Walmart launch is not going to be easy, even with working capital loans. That's why I've opened myself up to venture funding. I had a successful meeting with a consumer product VC firm. I was open with the fact that I'm rather green when it comes to seeking VC funds. They asked how much I'm looking for, and I said I'd like a bit of time to determine. There appears to be mutual interest. They asked me to follow-up and provide some additional info, so I'm doing that.
- Does seeking VC funding seem like a decent strategy here? I understand there are other avenues to funding. My goal is to build this product up as much as possible, making it accessible to everyone who needs it, and eventually have a big exit.
- How will we determine a valuation? Basing it on past performance--as I might if I were selling the biz--doesn't seem right based on the opportunity for growth here.
- Does a business like mine that already has a bunch of customers skip right to, say, Series C? Probably a dumb question but I'm happy to admit how ignorant I am.
- How much should I be seeking (I realize you can't directly answer this). If I got $500K, great, I'd use it as effectively as possible. If $5M, even better. $10M? I think the potential of this product warrants a big investment like that, though that is a lot of funds to manage.
- I'm currently a single-member LLC. I realize that I have to completely restructure. How does one transfer a brand and all assets to another entity?
- Once one VC is on board, is it typical to go out and find some more for that same round of funding?
I guess that's all for now. I'm certainly interested in any input you guys have.
